The political upheavals, the leadership crisis, and the ideological frustration which the Israeli Labour party went through in the first two decades of the 21st century led it to an unprecedented electoral decline. What happened to the formerly dominant party which established the state? What kind of intrinsic changes did it undergo in the late modernity and due to new sociological generations? What kind of new or old ideological discourses were formed within it? And how can we characterize its renewed ideological discourse? These questions stood at the background of this ethnographic study. The study focuses on young, idealistic activists who joined the Israeli Labour Party during 2006-2009 and asked to promote a social-democratic agenda. The book is based on multi-arena fieldwork and it enables a rare ethnographic reflection on the way macro level political changes take shape and are embodied in interpersonal interactions on the micro level.

The book traces contested visions and representations of al-Andalus/Sepharad in modern Jewish discourse through an in-depth analysis of the work of Sephardi intellectual network in the turn of the twentieth century Palestine/Land of Israel. Against the backdrop of the tumultuous political and social events of that period, and processes of national, ethnic, and religious partitions, the book explores the ways in which these Sephardi intellectuals fundamentally challenged the nationalistic and monolingual ideologies and looks at their efforts to establish a shared Jewish-Arab society based on a symbolic return to the Sephardi/Andalusian medieval legacy of Hebrew-Arabic bilingualism and a Judeo-Muslim joint cultural heritage. By exploring these contested representations of Sephardi identity and culture the book re-examines some fundamental issues that emerged at the turn of the twentieth century and which still accompany us to this day: the national conflict between Jews and Palestinians, the contacts and splits between Hebrew and Arab culture and the formation of ethnic hierarchies between Ashkenazim and Mizrahim. The book aims to contribute to the growing interest in modern Sephardi and Middle Eastern Jewish history and to broaden the scope of “Jewish studies” beyond the European Jewish experience.

Religious Zionism: Religion, Nationalism and Politics offers a new and groundbreaking understanding of the various forms of religious-Zionist political thought. It presents an analysis that undermines the common dichotomy between religion and secularism, and discusses in length the identity of religious Zionism as it consolidated during the past fifty years, based on this modern dichotomy, shedding new light on the movement.

According to its Declaration of Independence, the State of Israel "will ensure complete equality of social and political rights to all its inhabitants irrespective of religion, race or sex". However, the equality between men and women in Israel was not de facto. What did Israeli women have to say about that? The book presents views and opinions of Israeli women in the 1950s and the early 1960s about their roles and duties in the public and the domestic spheres, based on contemporary women's sections in the press and women's magazines. It shows what women said about women in the Israeli parliament (Knesset) and about Golda Meir; women's service in the Israeli Defense Force and the exclusion of women from the public sphere; motherhood and parenthood, woman's right to choose to have an abortion and women's struggle for peace; women's duties as housewives and the discrimination of women as employees. The book also uncovers a forgotten feminist journal, sheds light on a famous adoption story of a Yemenite baby and discusses a protest of female cadets in the Israeli Air Force flight course that was ignored and silenced for many years. The book unveils Israeli women's voices from the past, which show that in an era of many fateful decisions, Israeli women also made choices that affected their status in society. Readers might find these decisions relevant vis-à-vis women's status in Israeli society nowadays.

This study delves into Israeli political life in 1947–1952, focusing on several main emphases: the crucial moment when statehood was decided upon, the election campaign for the Constitutional Assembly (which transformed itself into the First Knesset), Israel’s struggle for de facto and de jure American recognition, and Chaim Weizmann’s term as Israel’s first president.

This book sheds new light on the history of the sanctity of Jerusalem in Islam. It is noticed already in the Quran which describes Muhammad's vision of a nocturnal journey from the "sacred mosque" (al-masjid al-ḥarām) in Mecca to the "far-off mosque" (al-masjid al-aqṣā) namely, the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. In his night journey to the site of the demolished Temple, Muhammad signaled to his contemporary Jews the course of salvation in which already Moses had led the Children of Israel to their promised land. On the other hand, the Quran praises also the Abrahamic sanctity of Mecca, especially in sūras which reflect the polemical rift with the Jews who eventually refused to recognize Muhammad as their messianic savior. After the death of Muhammad, when the first Muslims came from Arabia to Palestine, their awareness of the Quranic sanctity of al-Masjid al-Aqṣā resurfaced. This book elucidates major aspects of the renewed and growing sanctity of Jerusalem and al-Sham at large, as reflected in the available Islamic traditions. These traditions show also how patterns of the sanctity of Jerusalem were eventually adapted to Mecca in reaction to the growing prestige of Jerusalem, especially during the Umayyad period.

The book deals with challenges to the identity and stability of the State of Israel as a Jewish and democratic state. The first part of the book deals with the challenges that arise from all cultural groups in Israeli society: Arabs, migrant workers, religious Zionists, ultra-Orthodox, traditionalists, Olim from the former Soviet Union, Jews of Ethiopian origin, secular Jews. The second section deals with the ideological challenges that arise from the radical left and the religious and secular nationalist right. The third section deals with the significant issues in which there is a conflict between the Jewish and democratic identity of the State of Israel: the minority status of Arab Israeli citizens; Israeli control of Judea and Samaria; religious and state relations in Israel and the possibility of presenting an outline to strengthen Israel's Jewish and democratic identity at the same time.

Aron Menczer (1917-1943) was an active member of the Zionist youth movement Gordonya. After the annexation of Austria by Nazi Germany in March 1938, he became deeply involved in the efforts of the Youth Aliyah to enable Jewish youngsters to emigrate from Austria to Palestine. Menczer postponed his own Aliyah in order to continue to work for the exit of Jewish youth from Nazi Austria, and became in September 1939 the director of the Youth Aliyah in Vienna. His absolute devotion to the emigration efforts and to the educational work with the remaining Jewish youngsters in Vienna made him their recognized leader. Menczer was deported to Ghetto Theresienstadt in September 1942, where he continued his educational work. In October 1943 he was transported to Birkenau with a group of 1196 children, who were brought to Theresienstadt from Bialistok, and with 52 adults who, like him, volunteered to take care of them. They were all murdered there. The personality and deeds of Aron Menczer are the center of the book. A couple of chapters deal with the historical background: the Nazi policy of pressuring Jews to exit the country, prior to the phase of deportation and murder, and the efforts by the Youth Aliyah and other organizations to rescue them. The book is based on the original German version edited by Joanna Nittenberg und Benjamin Kaufmann. Two new parts were added to the current Hebrew version, edited by Jacob (Kobi) Metzer. One is a comprehensive introduction which examines Menczer’s activity in light of some general issues raised in the research literature. The other part consists of archival sources which were added to the book for additional insights.

David Biale’s Gershom Scholem traces Scholem’s tumultumous life, tying together his scholarly studies with his political activism and cultural criticism. By mining a rich trove of diaries, letters and other writings, Biale shows how Scholem’s inner life must be understood as the necessary background to understanding his most important writings. Far from a dry, ivory-tower scholar, Scholem emerges as a passionately engaged man of his times, whose life encompassed the most significant events of the Jewish twentieth-century: World War I, the rise of Nazism, World War II and the Holocaust, and the creation of the state of Israel.

It has been said: " No two people have ever read the same book." This is true for literature where the reader has to imagine a world presented by words. It doesn't seem appropriate for cinema which presents a world ready-made to be seen and heard. But films, almost since their early beginnings, and especially in the recent decades, have been capable not to present, not to show, but to allude to off-screen events and images. One could say about most of the movies discussed in this book: " No two people have ever watched the same film ".

The Ethiopian emperor Haile Selassie (1892-1975) was one of the most fascinating and mysterious figures of the twentieth century; a potent man of small dimensions, a cruel and generous leader, abstinent yet extravagant, a petty politician and statesman who took part in one of the most important junctions in history – the battle against Mussolini. He was a young revolutionist and aging reactionary, worshipped by many as the son of god. He sought asylum in Jerusalem, only to betray it later. A ruthless leader whose life ended in solitude, humiliation, and murder. Time Magazine named Haile Selassie “Man of the Year” in 1935, and he was among the “Top 25 Political Icons in History” in 2011.

16 October 1943 is one of the most intense, troubling and spectacular works ever written on a single event in the Holocaust of Europe's Jews. This text embodies a stylistic combination of almost real-time journalism, powerful poetic and emotional literature and a profound philosophical essay on the Nazi's behavioral patterns. Giacomo Debenedetti, a distinguished Jewish-Italian author, journalist, and literary critic and theorist describes in 16 October 1943 the terrors of the raid of the Ghetto of Rome. The story (for it is first and foremost a story) unfolds, with piercing, terrifying language, the deportation of one Jewish community within the Nazi extermination mechanism.